Certain fluid products are best stored as two separate components to be mixed in selected proportions at the time of use. Such products include epoxy type glues, some foaming materials, other adhesive systems and the like. In the past, certain products have been sold as consumer products utilizing dual syringes requiring the consumer to hold the syringe and manually depress a dual piston interconnected plunger to dispense two reactants that upon reaction, form the product. The product was generally not mixed and had to be mixed by hand and applied thereafter.
Although satisfactory in many respects, manual mixing introduces a variety of variables into the reaction and resulting characteristics of the end product. Certain users of the product may undermix the reactants thereby leading to insufficient reaction or curing between the components. Undermixing can occur by either not mixing the components for a sufficient period of time, or from insufficient blending between the components. Furthermore, it is undesirable to mix the components due to the potential for the introduction of contaminants into the product. Moreover, mixing prior to actual application of the product invariably results in waste of at least a portion of the product.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system adapted for dispensing a multi-component reactive product, which does not require manual mixing by the end user.
Additionally, multi-component reactive systems often require administration of the components in unequal proportions. For example, in a two component system, it is often necessary that the components be administered together at a ratio of 1:2 or 3:2 instead of a 1:1 ratio. Although an end user could most likely dispense each respective component in the desired proportion, such obligation further complicates use of a multi-component system, thereby rendering the system less desirable by consumers. Furthermore, manual dispensing of each component in a particular amount, different from the amount of the other component, increases the likelihood of errors in dispensing and thus, results in the administration of incorrect ratios of components.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system adapted for accurately dispensing the components of a multi-component product, which does not require manual measurement of proportions of each component while dispensing.
Furthermore, multi-component reactive systems can utilize components that exhibit different flow characteristics, such as viscosity. Attempting to accurately dispense such components, particularly concurrently with one another, is difficult if one component has a relatively low viscosity and thus offers minimal resistance to flow, and another component has a higher viscosity thereby causing that material to exhibit much greater resistance to flow.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system adapted to accurately dispense, and particularly simultaneously dispense, multiple components of a multi-component product, in which each component exhibits a different viscosity or other flow characteristic.